April Fools’ Day joke gone wrong

It’s that slightly infuriating day in the year when you can’t trust all that you read as folk try and catch you out with an April Fools’ Day joke. I did one when a few years ago when I put an article on the site saying there had been a spelling mistake in the Queen’s Royal Charter and the borough had been named as Royal Greeenwich (with three Es) in error – I believe it did fool a few people!

This year, however, I’ve gone in to the newspaper archives and found a fascinating tale of a joke gone wrong 100 years ago today.

12.01 update

Hundreds of retweets later, I can admit that the idea that this was a real joke gone wrong a hundred years ago, was itself actually a joke.